The Acadians (French: Acadiens) are the descendants of the original French settlers of parts of the northeastern region
of North America comprising what is now the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince
Edward Island. Although Acadians and Quebecers are both French-Canadian, Acadia was founded four years
prior to the founding of Quebec and in a geographically separate area. Furthermore, Acadians to a great
extent hail from different parts of France than do Quebeckers. Consequently, the two cultures are
distinct.

In the expulsion of 1755, Acadians were uprooted by the British; many later resettled in Louisiana,
where they became known as Cajuns.

Main article: History of the Acadians

In 1603 Henry IV, the King of France, granted Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts, the right to colonize lands
in North America between 40º- 60º North latitude. Arriving in 1604, the French settlers built a fort at
the mouth of the St. Croix River which separates present day New Brunswick and Maine, on a small island
named Île-Ste-Croix. The following spring, the settlers sailed across the bay to Port-Royal
(Annapolis Royal) in present day Nova Scotia.

During the 17th century, about one hundred French families were established in Acadia. They developed
friendly relations with the aboriginal Mi'kmaq, learning their hunting and fishing techniques.
The Acadians lived mainly in the coastal regions, farming land reclaimed from the sea through diking.
Living on the frontier between French and British territories, the Acadians found themselves on the
frontlines in each conflict between the powers. Acadia was passed repeatedly from one side to the
other, and the Acadians learned to survive through an attitude of studied neutrality, refusing to
take up arms for either side, and thus came to be referred to as the "French neutrals."

In the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded that portion of Acadia which is now Nova Scotia
(minus Cape Breton Island) to the British for the last time. In 1754, the British government,
no longer accepting the neutrality previously granted to the Acadians, demanded that they take
an absolute oath of allegiance to the British monarch, which would require taking up arms.
The Acadians did not want to take up arms against family members who were in French territory,
and believed that the oath would compromise their Roman Catholic faith, and refused.
Colonel Charles Lawrence ordered the mass ethnic cleansing of the Acadians, without authority
from London and despite earlier cautions from British authorities against drastic action.

Deportation of the Acadians

In what is known as the Great Expulsion (Grand Dérangement), more than 12,000 Acadians
(three-fourths of the Acadian population in Nova Scotia) were expelled, their homes burned and their
lands confiscated. Families were split up, and the Acadians were dispersed throughout the British
lands in North America; some were returned to France.

In 2003, at the request of Acadian representatives, a proclamation was issued in the name of
Queen Elizabeth II, acting as the Canadian monarch, officially acknowledging the deportation
and establishing July 28 as a day of commemoration. The day of commemoration is observed by the
Government of Canada, as the successor of the British Government.

Geography

The Acadians today predominantly inhabit the northern and eastern shores of New Brunswick.
Other groups of Acadians can be found in the Magdalen Islands and throughout other parts of Quebec,
in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia such as Chéticamp and Clare. Still others can be found in
the southern and western regions of New Brunswick and in New England. Many of these latter
communities have faced varying degrees of assimilation. For many families in predominantly
anglophone communities, French language attrition has occurred, particularly in younger generations.
The Acadians who settled in Louisiana after 1764, known as Cajuns, have had a dominant cultural
influence in many parishes, particularly in the southwestern area of Louisiana known as Acadiana.

Culture

Today Acadians are a vibrant minority, particularly in New Brunswick and Louisiana (Cajuns).
Since 1994, Le Congrès Mondial Acadien has united Acadians of the Maritimes, New England, and
Louisiana.

Notable Acadians in the Maritimes include singers Angèle Arsenault and Edith Butler, writer Antonine
Maillet, boxer Yvon Durelle, pitcher Rheal Cormier, former Governor General Roméo LeBlanc,
former premier of Prince Edward Island Aubin-Edmond Arsenault, the first Acadian premier of any
province and the first Acadian appointed to a provincial supreme court, his father, Joseph-Octave
Arsenault, the first Acadian appointed to the Canadian Senate, and former New Brunswick premier
Louis Robichaud, who was responsible for modernizing education and the government of New Brunswick
in the mid-20th century.

August 15, the feast of the Assumption, is the national feast day of the Acadians. The national anthem
of the Acadians is "Ave, maris stella". On that day, the Acadians celebrate by having the tintamarre
which consists mainly of a big parade where people can dress up with the colours of Acadia and make a
lot of noise.

The flag of the Acadians is the French tricolour with a golden star in the black field, which
symbolizes the Our Lady of the Assumption, patron saint of the Acadians and the "Star of the Sea".
This flag was adopted in 1884 at the Acadian National Congress in Miscouche, PEI.

Acadians in the diaspora have adopted other symbols. The flag of Acadians in Louisiana,
known as Cajuns, was designed by Thomas J. Arceneaux of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette,
and adopted by the Louisiana legislature as the official emblem of the Acadiana region in 1974.
A group of New England Acadians attending Le Congrès Mondial Acadien in Nova Scotia in 2004,
endorsed a design for a New England Acadian flag by William Cork, and are advocating for its
wider acceptance.

Flags of Acadiana region of Louisiana and the New England Acadians

Language

Acadians speak a dialect of French called Acadian French. Many of those in the Moncton area speak
Chiac and English. The Louisiana Cajun descendants mostly speak English but many still speak
Cajun French.

Our Families in Deportation & Resettlement

There were three stages involved in the deportation and resettlement of our Acadian ancestors.

1. The British, 1755 to 1757, hauled them to other English colonies or to England where many
entire families, including ours, were imprisoned at Liverpool. Which is how grandmother
Marie Josephe [LeBlanc] Richard, wife of Pierre II, who was born in Acadia ended up dying in
Liverpool, England.

2. About 1763 and thereafter, the English deported the imprisoned Acadians to France where they
settled in places near to the port of Nantes, including Belle-Ile-en-mer.

3. Some of the repatriated Acadians left France for a new life in then Spanish Louisiana. Spain
actively recruited them to be a buffer between Spanish and British interests in north America.

Below are some details of these tribulations.

The 1751 Census of Refugees

http://www.acadian.org/census1751.html
List of refugees at Les Planches
Pierre RICHARD, widower with 5 children
Pierre RICHARD, fils, his wife and 1 child
List of refugees at Riviere de Mecan
Michel RICHARD, his wife and 11 children
Joseph RICHARD, his wife and 7 children
Pierre RICHARD, his wife and 5 children
Jean RICHARD, his wife and 5 children
List of refugees at Beausejour and surrounding areas Menoudy
Pierre FOREST, his wife and 5 children
[his wife = Marie Madeline Richard, dau Pierre Richard]

Author notes:
Somewhere there are lists of persons
deported to England and when I locate it again it will be posted here.]

The 1763 Transfer from England to France

http://perso.orange.fr/froux/divers/ambition.html
The referenced web site is in French but easy to comprehend. It lists ships by name and date with the
passenger manifest for each. The page heading look like this "Rolle des acadiens embarqués à Southampton
à bord de le corvette du Roi l'Ambition. Capitaine Brunau De la Salle Le 16 Mai" which says List of
Acadians embarked from Southampton [England] on the King's Corvette L'Ambition, Captain Bruno de La Salle
on 16th of May [known to be in 1763]. Our families' names extracted and shown below.

http://www.acadian-cajun.com/7ships.htm
Quote: "In 1785, Spain paid for 7 ships to transport Acadians to settle in Louisiana.
For Spain, it meant settlers to buffer the zone between Spanish land and the British land.
For the Acadians, it meant a chance to join their fellow Acadians and to regain some of what
they lost during the Exile."

The seven ships which sailed from France to Louisiana were:
Le Bon Papa - from May 10, 1785 to July 29, 1785 - 80 days at sea;
La Bergere - from May 14, 1785 to August 15, 1785 - 93 days at sea;
Le Beaumont - from June 11, 1785 to August 19, 1785 - 69 days at sea;
Le Saint-Remi - from June 27, 1785 to September 10, 1785 - 75 days at sea;
L'Amitie - from August 20, 1785 to November 8, 1785 - 80 days at sea;
La Ville d'Archangel - from August 12, 1785 to December 3, 1785 - 113 days at sea;
La Caroline - from October 19, 1785 to December 17, 1785 - 54 days at sea.

[Personally, I am unable to imagine being cooped up in a wood sailing vessel with dozens of
people, for three months or more of tossing about on the ocean! The passenger lists are long and
include many names we know well in Louisiana today. Only those in our ancestral line have been
extracted. Visit the hosting web site acadian-cajun.com
for a lot more information.]

The first known European to coin the term Acadia or Arcadia was Giovanni da Verrazzano( 1485 - 1528 ).
The name came to him from one of two possible sources. One would be his meetings with a native who
used the word "quoddy" or "cadie" to describe what Verrazzano understood to be the territory
surrounding them. The second possible origin of the word would be from Greek or Roman classics,
where the word Arcadia is used to describe a pastoral paradise. Verrazzano, impressed with the
beauty of his surroundings, may have recalled the name from these works.

During the next decades, Acadia was the name given to the land that stretched from present-day
New Jersey to Nova Scotia. The name Larcadia first appeared on a 1548 map by Giacomo Gastaldi.
He located it near what is now Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It later appears on a 1566 map by the
Italian cartographer Bolognino Zalttieri. He placed it where Nova Scotia is today, seven decades
before the French began settling there. In 1575, the French historian Andr? Thevet changed the
name to Arcadie.

Acadian Roots

According to Bona Arsenault and Geneviève Massignon, most of the ancestors of Acadian families
had already arrived before the beginning of the 18th century.

The Centre Acadien invites you to get acquainted with the first arrivals of the families cited
below as well as the heraldry of these families. As far as is possible, we supply some information
regarding some members of these families who were deported, where they were deported to and even in
some cases the names of ships that either took them into exile or brought them back. Finally,
it will certainly be of interest to many to see the different spelling variations of several of
these family names.

The Centre Acadien of Université Sainte-Anne located in Church Point Nova Scotia is an ideal
facility for those who are interested in genealogy. Numerous individuals visit the Centre to
request a genealogical search about their ancestors. The Centre Acadien also offers the
possibility of doing one's own research.

A region and former French colony of eastern Canada, chiefly in Nova Scotia but also including New
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, and the coastal area from the St. Lawrence River
south into Maine. During the French and Indian War (1755–1763) many Acadians migrated or were deported
by the British to southern territories, including Louisiana, where their descendants came to be
known as Cajuns.

Acadian family names
The Deportation Order, by Claude T. Picard

Little physical evidence remains of pre-expulsion Acadia. Most of the family names of the Acadian
settlers are known from historical documents, and many of those family lines continue today.
Acadian names also survive in Louisiana, France, and Quebec, a legacy of the Acadian deportation
and subsequent migrations.

This list of about 300 family names was drawn from parish records, census records and other documents
from Acadia/Nova Scotia in the first half of the 18th century. All Acadian civilian families known to
have lived in the colony between 1700 and 1755 are included. This list does not include the families
of the French garrison serving in Acadia.